


stitched together by scarred skin

by frostbitten_cheeks



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: (except not exactly platonic), Gen, M/M, Platonic Soulmates, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-18
Updated: 2015-05-18
Packaged: 2018-03-31 04:10:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3963844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frostbitten_cheeks/pseuds/frostbitten_cheeks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one ever said the idea of soulmates comes with guaranteed romantic love, and this is where it leaves them – swaying between two sides of the depth, unable to go back and unable to go forward. </p>
<p>Because the bottom line is this: Dan and Phil have each other’s names written on their skin, but that doesn’t mean they’re dating.</p>
            </blockquote>





	stitched together by scarred skin

**Author's Note:**

> a soulmates au that tells the story of how fear and lack of communication can change one’s path and lead them astray. it actually isn’t a platonic fic, even though in part it is. but this is what it’s really about, isn’t it – just because two people belong together doesn’t mean they’re attached to a label. 
> 
> (link to this fic [on tumblr](http://literaryphan.tumblr.com/post/98806623186/stitched-together-by-scarred-skin))

 

 

i.

 

-

 

 

The names are written in tiny letters, their script neat and spaced and legible, located right under their respective hipbones on the very top of their thighs. It’s a strategic placing, a body part that is very rarely exposed – they can take their shirts off and even strip to their underwear and no one would know, no one would see.

Maybe that’s why everyone is so curious about it. Maybe it’s also why no one ever asks.

 

 

-

 

 

It isn’t about denial. It never was, never will be – and maybe if someone asked, maybe if one of their friends formed a direct question and would say, “Are you each other’s?”, maybe then they’d admit it, maybe they’d tell the truth.

But the thing about humans is that they’re full of prejudice, made of misconceptions and formed by assumptions, and when they make new friends, those, just like the ones before them, tentatively find the most politically-correct way to ask of their relationship status, quietly inquisitive about whether there is, after all, a secret relationship to be discovered.

And Dan would smile and shake his head, and Phil would laugh, airy and short, and it’s the lightheartedness of their answer and the ease in which they reply that convince those who ask that there isn’t anything to be discovered, just like it convinced those before them.

The irony, though – the irony probably lies between the part where they aren’t even lying at all, and the part where their thighs carry each other’s names nonetheless.

 

 

-

 

 

They have two rooms, two beds.

They have two names, each other’s, on the same spot on their respective bodies.

They have a shared apartment, a shared DVD collection, a shared job, a shared life.

They have a shared wall between their rooms, and the shared understanding that maybe that’s enough.

They don’t know what their plan is, because quite frankly, there just isn’t one. Dan can feel the panic rising in his throat when it’s accidentally mentioned by a third party and Phil gets overwhelmed, sometimes, by the amount of time that’s passed and the conversations they didn’t have, the words they could have shared but chose to dismiss in favor of making dinner and playing video-games.

There’s never been a plan, not since day one – they don’t know if they’re going to live together forever, don’t know what they’d do about relationships, don’t know if either of them would ever seek the company of someone else. There is never going be someone who’d compare, and they both know that; it’s in their blood and their veins and their bond and in the letters on their thighs, burning through their skin and their words and the connection they share with only each other. There is never going to be a husband, never be a wife, never be a partner or a different flatmate or someone who’d understand like they would. There’s no apartment to move out to, no reason to look for a relationship that wouldn’t work out, no need to discuss something they’ve managed just fine for years without ever exchanging a word.

But they’re static, they’re unchanging, and while there’s nothing out there for them save for each other, nothing they’d  _want_  but them, they’re humans. They both want marriage and families and children, want to grow old with a loved one, want to have someone to hold their hand and argue with while their grandchildren play in the yard in fifty years.

And that’s fine, that’s more than achievable, that’s a future they can pursue.

But the problem is – the problem is that the person they want to grow old with is each other, want Phil to make tea and Dan to complain about the cupboards being left open, want to share banter and jokes and old stories, want to be there by each other until there isn’t anything anymore, nothing left.

But the problem – the problem is also that they’re not husbands. They’re loved ones, they’re family – but not in that sense, never in that sense, not in the sense that requires a priest and rings and that would lead to children or grandchildren, not in the sense that would bond them to each other by law.

(And that’s why they don’t talk about it, why they don’t have a plan – because they both know there’s nothing to change, nowhere to go – and they both know, silently and privately and always each to himself, that there was once, a very long time ago, a chance for them to have that future, the one with the children and the priest and the rings.

They both also know that that time is long gone, because once upon a time they were too terrified to talk about it, to form a plan, and maybe it’s true when they say old habits die hard.)

 

 

-

 

 

They’re at the table in the lounge, Dan in his usual seat and Beth and Owen from the BBC across of him and Phil still in the kitchen, waiting on the boiling water. The two of them have been invited over for some version of makeshift tea and biscuits, but both seem more occupied with looking around the apartment in curiosity, their eyes scanning walls of pictures and shelves of films and the place itself, which is one hundred percent  _Dan and Phil_  to the point of no mistake.

It isn’t uncomfortable, not really – Beth and Owen are lovely and the four of them have working together for almost two years, and they were merely invited as a friendly gesture and somewhat so that Dan can say they made attempts at workplace relationships of a kind. But this still isn’t something he’s good at, something Phil’s good at – they don’t host people very often, especially not  _new people_ , and while their social lives are by no means nonexistent, they’re both still fairly rusty.

The three of them are in the middle of Beth’s story about a conversation she’s had with their boss when Phil emerges from the kitchen, balancing two mugs in concentration and then placing them in front of Beth and Owen with a smile before turning to Dan and offhandedly mentioning, “The landlord called just now, by the way. We need to renew the lease soon.”

Dan nods, asking, “Two years again?” and Phil shrugs in what Dan knows is an agreement and then spins around to head back to the kitchen for his and Dan’s mugs, and Dan watches him go and misses the frown on Owen’s face, the perplexed expression on Beth’s.

“Are you two –“ she begins, exchanging a brief look with Owen and then stopping herself, heading a different direction, and her tone changes but Dan notices, has seen the series of emotions that ran on her face many times before and knows what to expect. “Do you plan on staying here for two more years?”

“I’m very fond of it here,” he answers, a smile tugging at his lips, and she smiles back and takes it for what it is, a confirmation that they simply like living together; but Owen, for reasons that are beyond Dan, isn’t bought easily.

“No attempts at finding your one any time soon?” he asks, leaning forward on his elbows with one thumb running across the letters on his forearm, and he isn’t rude or out of place and he just seems genuinely interested in the answer, but Dan is still taken off guard because this isn’t something people ask, at least not directly, at least not them.

“I think you find them when you need them most,” is what he says, just as Phil comes back with their mugs and hands one of them to him, and he doesn’t quite meets Dan’s eyes but Dan knows he knows, has heard the part that wasn’t said, the part where what he actually meant was  _I needed him most a long time ago and that’s exactly when I found him_.

“That’s one way to look at it,” Owen nods, slowly smiling, and Beth is beaming at his seemingly optimistic views, and in the back of his mind Dan is once again amazed by how easily people are tricked by the fog of words, how carelessly they miss the scene going on behind the curtains just because they don’t make an effort to ask the right questions.

“I just thought, y’know –“ Owen adds, no longer focused on Dan or on Phil sitting down next to him, but rather on his mug and the plate of sweets by it. “This is usually the time when people are desperate to find them. I know I was until I did. And after that you never wanna let them go.”

Phil smiles into the rim of his mug and Dan laughs lightly and Beth launches into the continuation of her story, but there’s something about those words that catches them, that captures Dan’s mind and Phil’s attention – because they’d sign an additional two-years lease without thinking twice and they’re so settled that it stands out even to acquaintances and they’re not going anywhere, are they – they can’t, they’re not, and most importantly, they don’t want to.

So where does this leave them?

 

 

-

 

 

Soulmates, in their modern western-world form, are an easy concept to accept.

You’re born with the letters, etched into your skin from moment one. They grow as you do, stretch and widen and adjust themselves to the development of a human, but they’re there for as long as you live, standing for the idea of the person they belong to, the person you’re destined to meet one day.

The thing is, there’s no rules about how you should go about it – and people look at the name and see the love of their lives, see their future; but Phil was five when he looked at the name and saw someone who’d never be too busy to play with him, and Dan was eleven when he saw someone who won’t tire of him like everyone else, and maybe they’re different, maybe they were born with the name and born with this approach.

And now they’re standing on the edge and there’s nowhere to go, because they can’t go forward, have waited too long and have missed their chance, and they can’t fall backwards, can’t undo their meeting and replace each other’s names with another – and they don’t want to, don’t want to change the names or change what they have, but this leaves them here, leaves them unbalanced.

They’re each other’s; best-friend and other half and the one person who’d never be too busy, the one person who’d never get tired or walk away. But they’re not each other’s, not the way people would expect if they knew of the names, and there’s like a hole in the middle they forgot to fill, like they’re writing a story and suddenly skipped a whole paragraph with no reason, no explaining, and a long time ago it was anybody’s problem except theirs, but things are changing now – and they don’t know if it’s for the better.

 

 

-

 

 

People are worried about them, Dan knows that – and he knows Phil knows that as well because they’ve talked about it before, talked about it the way they do, without really saying anything specific but still knowing what the other meant, the subject left hanging in the air of the room long after they’re gone. 

There are family members and there are friends and there are fans and there are strangers on the street, and everyone has an opinion, everyone is constantly worried – and some think they’re using their friendship as a substitute of finding their other halves and some think they are in fact soulmates and are keeping their romantic relationship a secret and some don’t even have an idea of what is going on, are just worried because the situation is so odd, so unusual, and people never do know how to deal with things they’re unused to.

But the thing is, they’re all wrong, each in their own unique way – because Phil cooks dinner and Dan sets the table and they watch their favourite shows together and they crack jokes that no one but them would get, and they sit close together on the sofa and Dan steals Phil’s jumper without asking because it’s always irrationally warmer, and their thighs would press together right at the spot where the letters spell their names – and they’re them, they’re Dan and Phil, and they’ve never had a description and they don’t come with an explanatory label but they still know that everyone is wrong, because they are soulmates, they’re each other’s halves – but they’re also not in a relationship, never have and never will pretend to be in one, and maybe everyone’s insistence on believing they are should tell them something but it really doesn’t, because no one really got them anyway to begin with.

And it’s only here, years after they first met and sitting around the long conference-table at a meeting Dan wasn’t even remotely prepared for that someone gets it for the first time, and it takes him a moment to realize what’s happening because if there’s anything he’s unused to it’s this.

“You stare at him when he’s not looking,” the girl to his right says, and she’s short and dressed in formal attire and he thinks she’s someone’s personal assistant but he doesn’t know whose, and she’s not even looking at him, too busy arranging a stack of papers on the table before her, but he still knows instinctively who she’s referring to and is preparing himself for the usual string of mistaken thoughts.

“Phil?” he asks, not because he doesn’t know but because he feels the need to, needs to make sure they’re on the same page so he can correct her as effectively and quickly as he can, so he can go back to thinking as he stares at the blank wall uninterrupted. “We’re not actually like that, despite whatever rumours you heard.”

The girl looks up from the papers, titles her head and squints at him like he confuses her greatly. “Are there rumours I was supposed to hear? I really don’t know who you are, if that’s your line of thoughts. I just noticed it so I said it out loud.”

He’s taken aback, surprised and caught off-guard and embarrassed for automatically assuming she recognizes him, but there’s something about the way she worded it, something about _I just said it becaus_ e that makes him frown, gets his interest. “I’m sorry for, um – assuming that, but. Yeah, it’s still not like that.”

She looks like she might be laughing at him inwardly when she says, “I don’t know what  _like that_  means,” and she’s looking at him from the corner of her eye while she arranges the papers in a manner that makes him feel like she’s got him all figured out, like she’s about to uncover every single one of his deep dark secrets, even the ones he’s yet to discover himself. “You seem to be pretty used to that sort of reaction, though.”

“It’s happened once or twice before,” he replies, twisting the corner of his mouth into an awkward smile, and he’s starting to feel uncomfortable about the situation and the girl and the conversation, and he doesn’t even know why. “I thought that’s what you were going for with – I mean. What else could you mean by  _you stare at him_?”

“I guess…” she starts, but then she shrugs one shoulder, and he doesn’t know if she changed her mind about what she was going to say or she’s phrasing her response in her head, but nevertheless it’s clear she stopped before saying whatever it is she intended to. “There are some people who have that person, you know? The person your eyes immediately go to in a crowded room. I don’t think it has to be  _like that_ , though,” and now she really is mocking him, raising one eyebrow while imitating his voice, and a part of him knows that he should be offended because she’s clearly not thinking highly of him in that moment, but he can’t be bothered to care.

“That’s…” he says, but then stops. Swallows, exhales, shakes his head; reminds himself where he is and who she is, reminds himself who she’s  _not_  – someone he knows, someone who knows  _him_  – then jerks his chin noncommittally when he says, “Yeah,” and means nothing by it.

 

 

-

 

 

Later, much later, they’re at the bar of the building the meeting was held in, and they’re raising a glass in celebration of something he’s not really aware of, and he’s not alone, not even a little – he’s surrounded by people he actually knows, some of them people he genuinely really likes, but when he raises his head from sipping his wine his eyes are unfocused, subconsciously scanning the room until they zero in on Phil, walking across the room and trying to awkwardly navigate through the crowd to ask for a glass of something different.

And he gets it, then, gets it because she didn’t say love and didn’t say soulmates and she didn’t have to, because that’s not it – it wasn’t about implying they were secretly soulmates or perhaps secretly in love; it was about that one person in every room, that remains that person even when they’re not in the room at all, and maybe that’s the definition they were looking for all along because for them – for them that person is each other.

 

 

-

 

ii.

 

-

 

 

It was autumn and then winter and suddenly it’s spring, and spring is the season of change, but no one ever promised change has to be good.

 

 

-

 

 

There’s no trigger at all, is the thing. There’s the saying that goes  _nothing changes if nothing changes_  and it should be accurate, should hold true under all circumstances – but that’s not the case here, because nothing changes but suddenly something  _does_ , and they’re losing control and they don’t know how or why or what to do.

There’s cold air between them, where before there were quiet breathes and easy spaces, and it’s not intentional but it’s like everything became too much without them even noticing, and they don’t know how to fix something that never broke in the first place.

And it’s weird, weird and uncomfortable and strange, and Phil makes coffee in the morning and falters uncertainly before asking Dan if he wants one as well and Dan knocks on Phil’s door before he enters instead of just barging in, and those aren’t things they ever did before but now they do and they don’t know how to stop.

(Something snapped, and it wasn’t them – but there was something between them that stretched and stretched until finally, they looked away for only a moment and it tore, and now they don’t know how to tie it back together.)

They adjust fairly quickly – and maybe that’s a positive thing but maybe it’s not, because people adjust to bad changes, as well. The thing is, for something to change they’d have to talk about it, and for the cold air to thaw they’d have to acknowledge its existence in the first place, and this was never something they were good at because they talk about everything from music opinions over lunch to existentialism and life’s meaning at four in the morning, but they never really talk about this thing they have, never really talk about  _them_.

And from all the things they do well, killing old habits is hardly one – and this is how they got into this mess in the first place, isn’t it, so surely it isn’t going to be what gets them out.

So they don’t. Don’t talk, don’t change, don’t thaw. Phil makes himself ask before making coffee and Dan reminds himself to knock without even knowing why, and all of a sudden brushing their teeth at the same time makes the room feel strange so they don’t, and they aren’t ignoring each other, not really, but there’s something there they’re ignoring and both of them know it.

Maybe, possibly – they knew it all along.

 

 

-

 

 

(When they met – they were young and stupid and reckless, simultaneously ecstatic and terrified at the idea of each other, the reality of who they were. The train’s noise was deafening and the crowd was pushing them around but they didn’t really mind, and Phil grabbed Dan’s arm and they smiled for hours on end and they couldn’t really stop, not even once they’ve noticed.

There was so much they wanted to do, wanted to talk about, wanted to see – and Skype was great but it wasn’t the same, and it felt wrong, somehow, to talk about this  _thing_  through shitty webcams and lousy internet connections. So they ordered takeout for dinner and they discussed the video they wanted to shoot the next day and they lay on Phil’s bed and talked for hours through the night, about video-games and stories from school and nothing of real importance, and it was almost five a.m. when Dan started telling a story about two kids from his sixth form who found each other’s names by accident and Phil’s eyes were boring holes into him and it’s like that, without words, that they finally showed each other.

They fell asleep with Phil’s arm thrown over Dan’s stomach and Dan’s fingertips pressed to his name on Phil’s thigh, and they woke up like that, and their smiles were blinding but they didn’t say anything because they felt like they didn’t have to, and also, maybe, secretly, because they were scared.

They didn’t say anything the next day, either – didn’t say anything when they bid goodbyes with sad eyes and a promise to meet again, didn’t say anything on Skype that evening and didn’t even say anything the next time they met, in that exact same train station.

They didn’t know it, at the time, and they probably never would – but at that one moment when they exposed that small patch of skin, Phil was too hesitant to say something, to try to define them too early – and Dan didn’t want to say something first, waited for Phil to say something instead, and so neither of them said anything and they resolved to silent contentment, and with a blink of an eye and a rushed decision, they formed their entire future.)

 

 

-

 

 

They throw themselves into the chaos, the hectic months leading up to summer, and there are plans of things they want to do in the following year and video ideas each of them wants to film and there are meetings at the BBC about the future of the Internet Takeover, and in the midst of it all no one has time to notice that something’s off between them, and they let themselves fit in with the crowd, pretending they don’t notice anything as well.

They do notice, though – it’s in the in-betweens, the short moments they have where they can take a deep breath – and they don’t do anything because doing something is like making it real, but not doing anything is letting it  _become_  real, and that isn’t really any better.

So they push and they pull and they wait in silence, wait for this to pass and things to go back to how they were, but this isn’t how the world works – you can’t go back, you can only go forward, and this was their problem to begin with because they can do neither, and they know at some point something has to give.

And it does, like it was always meant to, and Dan’s waiting impatiently outside the BBC’s backdoor for Phil to walk out as well – he lost him somewhere along the stairs down and he didn’t even notice and it’s going to suck really badly if Phil managed to get lost, because all Dan really wants is home and Wi-Fi and food.

Phil skips down the stairs a few minutes later, and Dan pushes himself off the wall and raises his eyebrow and doesn’t ask anything because he doesn’t have to, because Phil’s already explaining as he rushes to say, “Sorry – one of the technicians stopped me on the way and I couldn’t tell her no.”

Dan nods and smiles a little and the two of them begin to walk away, and Dan isn’t really thinking so much about it when he asks, “What did she want?”, and this is where it ends, right there in the middle of the dark street with people walking on each side of them, because Phil pulls a little note out of his pocket and shrugs one shoulder and says, “She just wanted to give me her number,” and Dan stares at him in silence and doesn’t know what to say or what to do, can only feel the ground shift a little beneath his feet, can feel how nothing is going to be the same again.

 

 

-

 

 

And really, it isn’t because Phil isn’t allowed to want to be in a relationship – and really, it isn’t even because he  _does_ , because Dan knows that the most likely scenario is that Phil didn’t want to insult her, didn’t know how to turn her down.

It’s because now, everything they don’t talk about is in the air – and Dan always knew they didn’t have a plan but it seemed so far away, a future where they don’t necessarily share their house and their lives such a distant thing, cold and out of reach. He knew they never discussed relationships, knew there was a chance one of them would want one someday – but  _someday_ , it’s vague and foggy and too indefinite for him to grasp, so he just never did.

It terrifies him, now, how rocky everything is, how unstable  _they_  are. Anything can change with the drop of a hat and there’s nothing he could do, and he doesn’t like it, but also doesn’t know if there’s anything he can do, anything he  _wants_  to do to reverse it.

Things change between them once again, but now, Dan knows why and he’s pretty certain Phil does, as well. Where before there was silence and unmentioned shifts in their dynamic, now there’s ice – they’re ignoring each other, or maybe it’s Dan ignoring Phil or maybe it’s the other way around, but it doesn’t matter because the walls are too thick and Dan is panicking in the face of reality and Phil knows that if he takes a wrong steps it’d all break into pieces, so neither does a thing and they slip one step further into losing everything just the same.

 

 

-

 

 

Time passes and nothing changes, because positive changes need to be made, not found, and if left to two scared boys and their tendency to tell each other everything but the one thing that matters most, nothing is likely to change any time soon.

 

 

-

 

 

Realizing what he’s letting go of is a slow process, to Dan. It’s slow and painful and agonizing, but he’s only half willing to actually accept what’s happening – he tells himself that it’s okay, that every friendship has its ups and downs, that it’s a downright miracle that they’ve never had a fight like this before. He tells himself that for a very long time and nearly convinces himself, as well – doesn’t like to think about how convincing himself of half-truths is something he’s familiar with from past experience.

He doesn’t like to linger on the word  _fight_ , either – because it’s easier to call it that, easier to let himself believe they’ve had an angry exchange of words and are now waiting for the other to swallow their pride and apologize. Fights, especially verbal ones, are easy to solve and easy to forget; but it isn’t what this is and he knows it, is trying his best to avoid thinking about it with all his might.

They’re having a fallout, is the cold hard truth, and the words only start making their way into his bones once he stops being able to convince himself that this would all be okay, in the end. It’s a slow process of understanding – and it starts with small things, starts with him editing a video and having to bite his tongue before he calls out to Phil to look it over, to offer advice and criticism and encouragement along the way. It’s followed by walking into the lounge on a late afternoon and realizing he’s home alone, realizing Phil never told him he’s leaving anywhere before he did. It ends with business, ends with him getting a phone-call from a boss’ boss’ higher-up, having to confirm plans he’s never made only to realize that for the first time, Phil decided something work-related without consulting him, and the authority he’s spoken to immediately assumed Dan would be aware of said decision.

But none of those things are what really gets to him, in the end, because –

Because he’s not going through a process of realizing he’s letting go of Phil’s titles, is what finally sinks down on him one night – and it’s cold outside and he’s wrapped himself in a blanket on the sofa and he’s staring outside the window, the television on but muted. He’s not letting go of his fellow vlogger whose advice he appreciates or his flatmate whose presence is a given or a co-worker whose work-ethics he’s dependent on.

He’s letting go of his  _best-friend_ , and this is what hurts the most, this is what finally cuts through the coat of ice he’s been wearing to defend himself lately. He’s letting go of the ability to go knock on Phil’s door at that very moment, even though it’s late and Phil’s probably heading to bed, just because he’s bored or lonely or upset. He’s letting go of being able to complain aloud, knowing Phil would be listening even if he’s not saying anything – he’s letting go of being able to laugh at Phil’s enigmatic jokes, letting go of being the first to hear Phil’s thoughts before he even finishes thinking them through, letting go of being the person Phil approaches when he needs anything at all.

And maybe now is just too late, Dan realizes that night, wraps the blanket tighter around him and sighs very heavily, blinks once and then doesn’t bother opening his eyes again. Maybe he’s fucked this up beyond recognition, and maybe not doing anything is the worst decision he’s ever made, and maybe – definitely, undoubtedly, every cell of his body is now helplessly screaming regret.

 

 

-

 

iii.

 

-

 

 

There’s something aching about being completely entangled in someone and yet doing your best to avoid them. It’s a feeling in the bottom of their chests, not painful or throbbing, just sore, like dull pain from an old wound, and there’s nothing they can do to make it better. It’s simply there, with their every breath and every move.

They’re standing on the doorstep, and Phil’s playing with the keychain while Dan’s rushing around trying to collect his jacket and his shoes and his phone, and they’re late, they always are, but this time it’s a work-related dinner and this is the furthest from professional they’ve ever been.

Phil says nothing, though, and Dan doesn’t apologize. It’s in the air, unspoken – the way Phil would sigh heavily and tap his foot and raise his eyebrow at Dan whenever he’d pass by him, the way Dan would purse his lips and curse frantically and pull an apologizing face, knowing it’s his fault – and they do none of this because things have been nothing but normal lately, but the thought of what would happen if only things  _were_  normal lasts in the air like a sad reminder. 

It isn’t any different once they finally reach the restaurant – they shake people’s hands and they make small-talk and they put up a front, because if anything, facades are something they’re familiar with. But it isn’t the same, sitting next to each other without whispering lowly so their neighbouring attendees won’t hear, isn’t the same when the menu comes and they don’t read aloud the fancy dish-titles in terrible French accents, isn’t the same when people ask one of them a question and the other doesn’t answer in their favour, too used to it to notice it’s done.

They carry it with them – and it isn’t noticeable, not to anyone except them, but between the two of them, that’s the way it’s always been.

It isn’t until later, when the food’s arrived and the shop-talk has died down for a while, when someone asks, “So how long are you two planning to live together?”, and he’s a bald man in his fifties and he doesn’t seem to mean anything by it, is only asking as a result from an offhanded comment by someone else at the table, but the words hit something unspoken and Dan doesn’t manage to stop himself before he says, “At least until Phil grows tired of me,” and the sarcasm is heavy in his voice, and the table laughs lightly.

But Phil – Phil, he knows him better, can read him better, and he gives Dan an incredulous look, probably the first direct eye-contact they’ve made in some time, and he fakes a laugh too, plays along until the subject’s changed, then drags his chair back and says quietly, “Excuse me,” slipping away from the table without anyone but Dan really noticing.

And this is where it could all go wrong, Dan knows – because he can stay seated down and nothing would change, and that might be bad but it also means nothing would break, not more than it already has. He could stay and he could laugh at jokes he’s not listening to and pretend he’s a socially functioning member of society for some time, and Phil would come back eventually and he’d sit by his side once again, and it’d be silent and it’d be cold on the way home but at least they  _would_  go home together, because nothing could really end as long as he stays seated.

He thinks about it, for a moment and then one more. And then he rises from his seat, smiles an apology to the lady next to him and follows Phil out the door that leads to the balcony – because he’s never been one to take risks but he’s also never came so dangerously close to losing everything, and maybe this is what the idea of priorities really means.

It’s the smoothest he’s felt in months – he slides between tables and avoids waiters and he doesn’t care what people think because he has nothing to lose, not anymore, and then he’s outside and Phil’s standing in the moonlight and it feels wrong, somehow, because this isn’t who they are – they don’t do angst or heartfelt confessions under the open sky, don’t like the drama or the show of it all. They do  _them_ , do the only thing they know how, and  _them_  is waking up too early to watch baking shows and it’s making fun of each other during Wii marathons and it’s sitting in Starbucks making fun of the non-ironic hipsters. And now, Phil’s holding onto the railing and his shoulders are tense and he doesn’t let his anger show, almost never does, but his eyes are dark when he turns to look at Dan and everything about this is off, wrong in every way – but Dan decided to throw caution to the wind the moment he stood up and even if the situation is entirely foreign to him, he’s going to do his best to fix it.

“Do you really think that?” Phil demands, barely letting even a moment of silence fade into the background. He’s sharp and focused but hazy at the edges, and something snapped, Dan knows, knows he was the one to snap it; and it’s closed off behind months of silence but this isn’t hopeless, isn’t without an answer, because Dan also knows what he did wrong – knows Phil isn’t offended, Phil is  _betrayed_ , betrayed because Dan dared to suggest that Phil would be cruel or heartless enough to leave him behind without a warning, betrayed because Dan made it sound like he doesn’t trust Phil to stick around no matter what, abide by their unspoken agreement to always be what anyone else never was for them: someone to rely on. And Phil is angry, has a right to be, and there are no walls anymore, nothing to hide behind – Phil is saying exactly what he means without holding anything back and that’s new, an unfamiliar sound in both of their ears.

“Obviously not,” Dan tries, and it tastes odd on his tongue but he’s not as strong as Phil in that moment, not brave enough to talk directly about what’s there – chooses instead to hide behind the walls if only for a moment more. “It was a joke. You know that.”

“Do I really?” and Phil’s not looking at him anymore, turning his back to Dan and hunching over the railing. “How do I know that’s a joke? Maybe you – maybe you’re waiting for that, for me to get up and leave, and I wouldn’t know because –“

_Because you’d never tell me_ , is what Phil doesn’t say, and Dan hears it in the silence because even in the kingdom of no walls they’re still afraid, still not good with talking about how they’ve never talked about what really matters.

“I don’t…” Dan begins but stops himself before he can, the words burning in his throat as he swallows them down. Isn’t he, though? Isn’t that what brought them here in the first place, him letting fear and uncertainty take over rather than tackling their issues headfirst – aren’t they here because he took a step back from Phil and created this distance between them rather than bridging the space and grabbing onto Phil?

Because maybe that’s the solution, Dan realizes in that moment, the air chilling him to his bones on that balcony, in the scene that doesn’t fit them or who they are or what they represent. Maybe all he had to do to make Phil stay is simply ask him to – and maybe he knew that all along but didn’t want to admit it, because admitting it means admitting that the base of their problems is that Dan’s too afraid to ask, and Phil’s too afraid to tell him to.

“I don’t think you’d leave,” Dan admits quietly, the truth a strange sensation after all this time of putting up a front – and he doesn’t, not really, because he knows Phil would never leave and that’s not what he’s afraid of; what he’s afraid of is that he’d never find a way to ask him to stay – and even though he knows that now he doesn’t say it out loud because they’re not there yet, because humans aren’t fixed in a moment and he can’t bring himself to cut his secrets open and bleed into the ground.

He doesn’t need to, though, doesn’t need to because it’s Phil, and somehow in this mess he forgot that – forgot about the letters and the bond and the understanding, forgot that Phil  _gets_ him, forgot that there’s a reason they never needed words because words are only one kind of communication, and they have many others.

Phil turns to him, slowly, and his eyes aren’t dark and his eyebrows aren’t furrowed and he doesn’t say anything but then again, neither does Dan – and they just stare at each other and Dan knows, remembers finally, that this is also communication – knows that they’re both thinking of how absurd they are and knows that something has been forgiven between them just like that, and a moment later he says, “I’d kinda hate it if you did,” and his voice is light and his tone is joking but it’s Phil, and Phil gets it, and his eyes brighten in a way he hasn’t seen in a really long time.

It’s surreal, surreal and ridiculous and utterly like them, and the solution was so easy, right beneath their noses, but neither even thought to go looking for it because it’s so simple, so obvious; this, this entire train-wreck they drove themselves into – it’s been about  _trust_ , and they never thought trust would be an issue because that’s the one thing they always had, the one thing Dan never doubted. But maybe that’s not how life works, maybe even the strong have moments of weakness – and maybe all that was needed is for Phil to be reminded that Dan trusts him to stay, trusts him with his vulnerability – and maybe all that was needed is for Dan to be reminded that Phil trusts him with his decisions, sides by him even when he’s wrong. And maybe communication was the key all along, and they just couldn’t remember that silence is a type of communication, as well.

Maybe it’s true that they never really ended up saying anything anyway – and maybe that’s not really good, because one day they’d have to, one day breaking down the walls won’t be enough and the fears would have to be faced with, as well. But for now, maybe it’s the situation that matters and maybe it isn’t the things they voice aloud that count, but what they acknowledge wordlessly, with the things they never said.

(It’s at that moment that something breaks again, but this time, it isn’t a bad thing at all – because to make something new, something better, you have to destroy at least a portion of what was there before, and now, now they finally know this.)

And then, they burst into laughter, free and lighthearted, and they grin at each other like fools because they know neither of them would judge, and they let the door bang behind them on their way back and they climb into their seats around the table with their smiles still painted on, and their shoulders knock together and the rest of the attendees stare for a while, confused – but neither of them finds the will to care.

Phil’s face is lit up and Dan knows this, knows without looking, and he doesn’t let himself stare, doesn’t let his eyes wander away from his plate because he knows he wouldn’t be able to look away if he did – but he bites back his smile and lets his dimple show and focuses on the conversation going on really hard, hard enough that the words stop sounding like words and begin to sound like blank sounds.

Underneath the table, Phil’s hand rests on the edge of Dan’s chair, and they’re not holding hands, have no need to, but their hands touch and they don’t move away because they still don’t have a plan but they do have each other.

 

 

-

 

 

Things don’t really change, after, because that’s how things are; and the people, they definitely don’t change, because that’s how they are, too.

Their co-workers still let their eyes linger in confusion when the two of them laugh together for too long. Their friends still make vaguely worried comments, every once in a while, worried about them and their future and the fact that they don’t seem to even be looking. Their fans still think they’re hiding something, covering the truth with blankets of direct lies, and are not to be persuaded otherwise.

Everyone is still curious. But just like before, humans are humans – so no one ever asks.

But maybe – maybe this doesn’t matter anymore. Because they still have two rooms and two beds, although these days, they’re shared more often than not. They still have a shared apartment and DVD collection and job. They still have a shared life. They still don’t have a plan.

But now they also have each other, and this is the only thing that changes – because that, more than anything, is definitely enough. 


End file.
